Panama Canal Aims to Boost Revenues by 25%

The Panama Canal aims to increase its revenues by up to 25% through business diversification driven by four major projects totaling $8.5 billion in investment, which involve the construction of a gas pipeline and two new ports, the canal's administrator, Ricaurte Vásquez, said this Tuesday. The Panama Canal connects 180 maritime routes and 1,920 ports in 170 countries. The Panama Canal's revenues increased by 14.4% in the 2025 fiscal year compared to the previous one, reaching $5.705 billion, according to the administration of the interoceanic route reported last October. The four projects promoted by the Canal provide reliability to this 82-kilometer route that connects the Atlantic and Pacific and through which about 6% of international trade passes, the administrator explained during a meeting with members of the Association of Media Editors of the European Union, Latin America, and the Caribbean. A new reservoir—costing about $1.5 billion—that ensures the water resource for the Canal, the only freshwater one in the world; the gas pipeline; a new terminal port on each side of the route and a land logistics corridor represent for this waterway 'the possibility of an increase, possibly up to 20% or 25% of its revenues,' which is 'the goal we aspire to,' Vásquez declared. The Canal multiplied its revenues after the expansion came into service in mid-2016—a third lane through which neopanamax ships pass with more than triple the cargo of those that cross the century-old locks, a project costing $5.5 billion. The gas pipeline project, with an investment of at least $4 billion, was presented to the market last September in a meeting that attracted 45 global companies, of which '17 or 18' participated last week in a series of individual meetings with the Canal, Vásquez detailed. To the presentation of the Corozal (Pacific) and Telfers (Atlantic) port projects, with a total investment of $2.6 billion, '30-32' global operators attended, and this week one-on-one meetings are being held with 11 of them, he added. 'We aspire that 90 days (after) the prequalification is closed,' which is expected to happen this month or at the latest next January, 'we can announce the prequalified in the case of the ports, and in the case of the gas pipeline, it may take us five months, depending on how many participants there are,' he added. Its main users are the United States, China, and Japan.